DAKOTA — Dakota stayed old school when it hired former NIC-10 coach Rick Schmitz to replace the retiring Jerry Lano as its football coach Tuesday night.

Dakota had made the playoffs 14 years in a row and won three state titles in Class 2A and 1A before going 7-11 the last two seasons. Schmitz, who also was the head wrestling coach at Boylan, Auburn and Jefferson, is 23-50 in three football head coaching stints at Auburn and Jefferson. But he was also 9-9 in his last two years at Auburn, including one of Auburn’s only two winning seasons in a 31-year stretch, and went 7-11 at Jefferson in 2010-11 for a team that was 4-41 the previous five years and 2-16 since he resigned after not getting a teaching job in the high school.

“This is a different challenge for me,” Schmitz said. “When I’ve gone in before, I’ve taken over a program that is down-and-out. This is a big challenge, just in the opposite way.”

Schmitz met with Dakota players twice Wednesday, once for a few minutes before school and a second time when players met him during lunch hour, and he drew up Xs and Os on a board in athletic director Mark Pfieffer’s room.

“It’s been such a spectacular day,” Schmitz said. “Coach Lano came in and congratulated me and talked about what Dakota football meant to him and told me to keep it going.”

Keeping it going was one of the reasons Dakota hired Schmitz. His teams have been as hard-nosed and run-oriented as Lano’s. His last Jefferson team averaged fewer than 30 yards passing in 2011, but Josh Woodford set a then-Jefferson record with 1,242 yards rushing.

“My philosophy ties in with what they’ve been doing the last 20 years,” Schmitz said. “When you talk about Jerry Lano being old school, you can toss me in there too.”

”He fit in with a lot of our tradition,” Pfieffer said. “His experience in the weight room will also be a plus. We think with his enthusiasm he will take the program and continue a good tradition for us.”

Even Schmitz’ wrestling background is a good fit. Dakota has also won three state wrestling titles since 2005 and many of the Indians’ best football players have been wrestlers.

“At a small school, you live and die by multisport athletes,” Pfeiffer said. “Being good at one makes you good at the other. Wrestlers make good football players and football helps with toughness.”

Schmitz, 59, has retired from teaching, but is excited to return to football and take over a Dakota program that was 7-2 on the fresh-soph level last year.